Dining

Stuff the Bus 2011

We are currently seeking volunteers to serve on the 2011 Stuff the Bus Executive Board. If selected for committee you will be asked to be able to meet weekly during the months of September and October. The event will be scheduled for early November. We break into sub-committees of logistics, public relations, organization drive, and volunteer coordination.
This is a great resume builder!!!!! If you are interested in joining the effort this coming fall please send your contact information to eva.galbraith@sodexo.com

Stuff the Bus 2010

Being surrounded by cans with nowhere to move and voices yelling in excitement is not your typical Go West bus experience on the campus of Western Illinois University. But for one day every year for the past three years this is what students have now coined as a campus tradition. Sodexo Dining Services sponsors the event. On November 9th over 400 students representing 52 student organizations volunteered throughout the day to help collect and sort food for the communities' needy. Volunteers started at 6:30 am staffing collection points at local businesses, the area hospital, on the downtown courthouse square, on the Go West bus parked on campus and even pushing grocery carts around campus picking up donations from different academic buildings.

Two weeks earlier dozens of students 'tricked the town' not for treats but for pantry donations, hanging 5,000 bags on area residential front doors. Organizations sponsored bake sales to raise money, First Year Experience classes held 50/50 raffles and went on a shopping spree, the dining centers sponsored contests with 'floor wars' giving a pizza party to the resident hall floors that donated the most food, and the list goes on and on.

Working until late into the night, students collected a little over 10,000 pounds of food and several thousand dollars. "I am so fortunate to be able to take part in this event that provides so much help for the community, but mostly being able to work with all of these amazing students, it is an incredible experience. It is fun, too!" said Eva Galbraith, Sodexo Marketing Manger on campus. "This is a fantastic event for Sodexo to sponsor. It allows us to work with numerous departments on campus, Go West, our transit system has been a terrific partner. It gives me the opportunity to work with sororities, fraternities, academic departments and all of the students that we feed on a daily basis."

Where does all that food go? The Black Student Association, active participants in collecting the food, assembled over 150 Thanksgiving meals to give to area families whose holiday might not be so plentiful without this effort. Western Illinois University's Resident Assistants Council used some of the food to prepare the annual Salvation Army's Thanksgiving Meal. The remaining food and money was donated to a local food pantry, Loaves and Fishes, Etc. While all of the volunteers can let out a sigh for all the work that they have done, it is not time to relax,
the executive board is already forming for next years' drive that will be bigger and better than ever!